1. I think I’ve got a Taylor Swift update for you! Breathless news! TRAVIS KELCE REFUELS HIS CAR AS HE DATES TAYLOR SWIFT! Brother Jason Kelce told me Sunday night: “It’s certainly been weird, the level that it is now. On one hand, I’m happy for my brother that he seems to be in a relationship that he’s excited about, that he is genuine about. But there’s another end of it where it’s like, ‘Man, this is a lot.’ There’s paparazzi talking about him fueling his car before the game today and I’m like, ‘Is that really necessary information to share?’ This is another level of stardom that typically football players don’t deal with. And so on one hand, really, really happy for my brother and where he’s at in his current situation with Taylor but on the other hand, there’s some, I think, alarms sometimes with how you know, over-in-pursuit people can be. Overall, he can deal with some of this. As long as it’s not, you know, becoming a threat to his safety and things like that.” Travis Kelce’s finding out he’s entering a level of attention that even goes beyond what Brady-Bündchen was.
2. I think it was refreshing to hear Mac Jones not feeling beaten down by the Belichick coverage in New England in the last few weeks. After playing his best game in the league in nearly two years in the 29-25 upset over Buffalo in Foxboro, what was clear to me was how Jones, as expected, is good at compartmentalizing what really matters in football: leaving the outside stuff at the locker-room door. Business is business. Don’t let outside stuff interfere with it. “I wouldn’t say that it’s hard,” Jones said. “You’ve got to know that what’s going on outside the building doesn’t matter—only what we’re doing inside the building. To me, what’s been important is being Mac. I love the game, I love preparing for the game, and I think my teammates see that and respect that.” Jones credited offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien for being creative with motions so Buffalo couldn’t always have a clear read about what the Patriots were doing. And he said Belichick “did a good job of rallying the team, getting us ready, and focusing on the stuff that really matters.”
3. I think if you listen to Tua Tagovailoa talking to Michael Smith for “Football Night in America,” he doesn’t spell out why he favors Mike McDaniel over Brian Flores, but he comes close to it when he describes his early times in Miami “almost like people pleasing, being like a yes man, almost.” That’s consistent to what he’s said in the past—not wanting to be highly critical of Flores’ coaching and relationship style, but implying how much more comfortable he is now, feeling freer under McDaniel. The full interview:
Tagovailoa finding freedom to be himself with MIA
In this episode of “Gets It”, Michael Smith sits down with Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa to discuss how Mike McDaniel has helped him find the freedom to be himself, as well as overcoming adverse moments in his career.
4. I think I like the Eagles in Kelly Green, but are you like me—and when you turned on the TV Sunday night did you wonder if the Jets somehow snuck onto Lincoln Financial Field?
5. I think, re Ian Rapoport’s report that Bill Belichick signed a contract extension earlier this year in New England: I doubt sincerely, and I mean sincerely, that this will matter if the Patriots finish last in the division and do it in a desultory fashion. Paying off a contract won’t stand in the way of Robert Kraft doing what he thinks is best for the organization … and I, in no way, mean this is a done deal—at all. I just mean Kraft’s going to do what he thinks is best for the franchise after the season, whether it’s keeping Belichick or moving on.
6. I think Trevor Lawrence is that limited with a bad knee—eight carries, career-high 59 yards (a long of 26) in the win over the Saints after being iffy to play—he’s either a lot grittier than we’ve thought of him, or the adrenaline of a tough prime-time is a very good thing. Lawrence showed a lot Thursday night.
7. I think it’s cool, I suppose, that men’s flag football and women’s flag football will be contested at the 2028 Olympics. Just seems odd to me. Not saying the International Olympic Committee put in a sport that is likely to result in two gold medals for Americans in an Olympics to be contested in America (Los Angeles), but two questions: If these Olympics were to be contested in Athens or Beijing, would flag football be in them? And how many countries will field truly competitive flag football teams?
8. I think for those who don’t know what a “hip-drop tackle” is (I am one of them), and why the NFL seems bound and determined to ban it, Zaire Franklin feels you. Franklin, the Indianapolis linebacker, leads the NFL in tackles after seven weeks. He expressed what I’ve thought on this topic on social media: “Nobody who ever played football know what … a ‘hip drop’ tackle is! SMH. When you’re in the open field with somebody that can put you on ESPN the only thing on your mind is to get him down not what type of tackle am I gonna use. Who’s fighting for the players??” I’ve never heard or seen a defensive coach teach a player to tackle someone with the intention of forcefully putting body weight on the offensive player’s shin, lower leg or ankle. It’s football. It happens.
9. I think the NFL’s got to get out of business of trying to legislate everything out of the game that might hurt players.
10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:
a. Steve Hartman is singular in American TV, with good-news stories when we need them most. Like this week, from St. Louis, with a story of a grandma cooking breakfast for some high school students:
b. It’s a little more than that.
c. The Wednesday Breakfast Club at Bishop DeBourg High School, with a crew of students, used to meet at a local diner until one Wednesday in 2021.
d. Then, as Hartman reported: a student named Sam Crowe said, “You know, my grandma could cook better than this.” So the next Wednesday, they all showed up at [grandma Peggy] Winckowski’s doorstep. “I’m like, OK, and they came all school year—every Wednesday,” Winckowski said. The breakfasts continued merrily until July 2022 when all joy was lost.
e. Then Hartman, with a plot twist, as he does so well.
f. Hoops Story of the Week: Emma Bacallieri of Sports Illustrated on the explosive fame and basketball learning of Iowa guard Caitlin Clark:
g. This story’s a good example of a fine writer, Bacallieri, taking minimum expansive stuff from the subject and making a definitive and illuminating profile out of it. Nice work on Clark’s maturation as a player and a teammate.
h. The fame’s got to be tough to handle sometimes. Writes Bacallieri:
In August, Iowa announced that it had sold out the entire women’s basketball season: Demand for season tickets was so overwhelming they could not promise any single-game offerings. The Hawkeyes set a record for Big Ten attendance last year. But this was another level. The program had previously sold out just a handful of games in the 15,056-capacity arena, and now it was packing an entire season months before tip-off.
The mania had spread beyond campus, too: When the Triple A Iowa Cubs gave out a Caitlin Clark bobblehead in June, fans started getting in line at 6 a.m. When she played the John Deere Classic Pro-Am in July, just over the border in Silvis, Ill., organizers couldn’t recall a gallery so large since Bill Murray played in 2015. (At the event Clark was paired with U.S. Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson, who demurred when asked whether she had the game-changing potential of Tiger Woods but called her “transcendent” and “spectacular.”) And Clark received perhaps the biggest honor of all in August: Her likeness was sculpted in butter at the Iowa State Fair.
“I mean, people go to the fair just to see the butter sculptures, especially the butter cow,” Clark says. “For me to be next to the butter cow, that’s a pretty big deal.” (Previous butter honorees have included Elvis, John Wayne, Abraham Lincoln and The Last Supper.)
i. Then there was the scrimmage against DePaul last week. Outside. In Kinnick Stadium.
j. And 55,646 showed up to see a women’s basketball scrimmage. On a windy day, Clark had a triple-double, and scored 34. Of course.
k. Team of the Week: The Las Vegas Aces, who went on the road and got beat up in Game 3 but survived to win Game 4 and take the WNBA title, 3-1, over the New York Liberty. Well-chronicled here by Sabreena Merchant of The Athletic.
l. Wrote Merchant:
Las Vegas was given every opportunity to come apart, every excuse to back down and let this series go back to [Nevada] for Game 5. Already without Candace Parker most of the season, the personnel shortages were compounded in the finals by the injuries that sidelined Chelsea Gray and Kiah Stokes, two starters whose contributions anchored the offense and defense, respectively. Only eight Aces players were healthy. Four were not regular rotation players, and one had never played minutes outside of garbage time for the Aces.
Cayla George took over for Stokes in the starting five after playing six total minutes in the first three games … [Becky] Hammon gave her the green light to shoot, and the only way her presence on the court would matter is if she heeded the words of her coach.
The 34-year-old has been a successful player abroad, winning the MVP of the WNBL in Australia this past season, but that production has never really translated to the U.S. She had started three games in her WNBA career entering Wednesday and was in and out of the rotation in Las Vegas, but mostly out during the playoffs. However, when her number was called in the finals, George delivered her best game of the year.
m. Vegas was down 12 in the third quarter, and the 34-year-old George hit two straight threes to start the comeback. That’s a good player, and that’s a good story. Congrats to the Aces.
n. Hate Jose Altuve as much as you want. And I have my suspicions about his role in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. But that’s a Hall of Fame player right there.
o. That three-run game-winning homer against the Rangers Friday night—turning a loss to a win with one swing—was his 26th jack in 101 postseason games. This is a 5-foot-5 person, and if we were to judge him on a 162-game season for playoff games, Altuve would be on pace to hit 42 homers in the equivalent of a full season of them. Who knows—he may end up in 162 of them before he retires, and we’ll get to know if he can keep it up.
p. The D-Backs giving a better team all it can handle in a league championship series is what sports are all about.
q. I wonder if the bus riders of Seattle are still in mourning over Eclipse the black lab, on the one-year anniversary of her death?
r. Eclipse became a Seattle legend by boarding a bus each day for seven years—often by herself—after being shown how to do it by her owner, Jeff Young. It wasn’t that Young stopped taking her; it was that Eclipse pushed the envelope and wanted to go earlier than Young was planning. “One day,” Young said, “she was antsy, so she got herself on the bus and got off at the dog park and just continued doing it.”
s. Back when it started, in 2015, Eclipse was a story:
t. Have a great, great day, Phil Bell. Good luck. And thanks for being a reader.
u. RIP, Burt Young. Paulie in the “Rocky” movies defined character actor, just a perfect angry, hard-drinking, selfish-with-a-side-of-good-heartedness guy who just seemed so real. Some of Paulie’s character, he told The Observer, was very much Burt Young. “His insecurity, of course, I patterned from me,” Young said.
v. RIP, Samantha Woll, the 40-year-old Isaac Agree Downtown Detroit Synagogue president found stabbed to death near her home Saturday morning. The more I’ve read and heard about Woll’s unselfish life of service—she worked to build bridges between the Jewish and Muslim communities, for instance—the sadder this death is.
Daniel Miller is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. His coverage spans from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis for sports enthusiasts.
